craving mud.

Right now, I would give my left arm for a Mud Cake from Miss Maud's.

Before that, of course, I'd need a decent helping of Green Curry from the Phu Thai Cafe.

And I'd enjoy this lavish meal after a day at Melbourne Central, I think.

I'd have spent the day browsing the "Australiana" shops, looking for the perfect bush hat, complete with corks for keeping the flies away, and maybe some animal crossing signs.

Which, Mother Dear, I am planning on stealing from you. I have grand plans of taking either a game room (an office maybe?) or a hallway and painting Eucalyptus trees all over the walls (or rather, wallpaper?) and hanging these darlings all over the room.

Why the sudden nostalgia trip? I don't know, but I do know I'll have to get back to that danged country within the next 10 years. My taste buds can't survive without the lusciousness of Miss Maud's Mudcake! I'm drooling over the thought of a sausage roll from St. Leonard's, believe it or not!


Can you believe, I'm getting wistful? October 10th marks the 5 year reunion of my class from St. Leonard's? I won't be in attendance, but I'll be thinking about them... but who knows if I'll be feeling this charitable on that particular day.

i stood up

For the next couple of days, I will be enjoying the infinite pleasure that many have had before me of trying to navigate a college campus on crutches.

Yesterday, I literally stood up after a test and sprained my ankle. Yeah, you try making that sound normal to a doctor. You can't. So today, my dear little brother helped me to the health services on campus and they fixed me up with crutches for the next two days and a "Swede-O" to support my injured joint for the next few weeks. It's stylish:




I'm sorry, can we say mortifying, children?

the blind leading the blind

I'm really tired of hearing celebrities talk about politics. I'm sorry, did I miss something? Are they so much smarter, so much more well informed that they really should be the ones making the decisions? I don't care who they are, who they support, or what they have to say. I wish they'd keep their big mouths shut. They're no more educated than the general public, and I'm tired of them acting like because they're celebrities, they know more than we do.

I think everyone needs to stop listening to what people in Hollywood have to say and listen to the candidates. God forbid people in this country make an educated decision and not an emotional one.

watch me.

If you're a fan of Josh Groban, you seriously need to check this video out. He performed at the Emmy's last night, and his medley of tv show theme songs makes me laugh- especially when he does Friends. Ashley M. and Mom- this is for you!

catch up

I haven't updated in ages! Gracious! I've been insanely busy, forgive me. I had my first bio test on Friday and spent a long time studying for that. Then we had Cory and the parents this weekend. That was fun. We've missed Cory, it was wonderful getting to just hang out and spend time together. But being with Cory makes me miss Brenton and Leah too. I can't wait to see them again. One day soon, hopefully.

I have my first Geog of the Global Village test today. Gosh, I'm actually a little flustered. I actually feel like I've got quite a good handle on the "globe," if you will, but not the parts my exam is over. I've got an exam over the Americas (Latin and North) and the Caribbean. Let's see what my experience is: I've lived in North America for a grand total of... 12 of my 23 years. Not as long as most. Then I've never set foot in Latin America, thank you. I've been to the Caribbean twice, though... and what Zach doesn't know is I plan on owning my own small part of it one day. I can dream, can't I? I'm also guilty of not having any interest in North America or Latin America. My interest lies in Europe, one hundred and ten percent. I cannot wait to take Zach there. My dear husband has never seen anything older than the United States can boast- he's never stood in a church that's been standing since before our country was a country. He has never seen a Viking dwelling dating from before the New World was discovered. He's never been to a castle, a real castle. I cannot wait to take him, to let him experience these things himself. Europe is my favorite place on the whole planet, from Germany north. Germany, Norway and England are my three favorite countries on the planet. I miss Europe so much, I think I'll try to talk my dear mother into an English vacation. Can you imagine the two of us loose in London? Our husbands are liable never to get us back!

What else? Ah! I can finally announce our WONDERFUL news! My sweet husband has SIGNED A CONTRACT! He is going to be the new Associate Veterinarian at Brazos Bend Animal Hospital starting in May of 2009, or thereabouts. We are very blessed, Zach is very happy with where he has chosen to work. He has the highest regard for Dr. Ross and has bonded quite solidly with Dr. Ping. He'll be working in an area he's been in for much of his life, and we're happy to know where we'll be settling in a short time. I am so proud of him, he's very lucky to have had such success, he's a different man since getting this offer. His stress levels are next to none and he's so pleased and proud he can hardly stand it. To match, so am I. I cannot believe that in a very short time, I will be the wife of a Doctor! Zach has worked very hard, and I'm so happy to see that others see the potential in him that I know is there. I'm so happy to finally be able to share this wonderful news.

Now all we need is for me to find a job, and we'll be the happiest couple on the planet. My goal is the Museum of Natural Science in Houston. That is one of my favorite places in the city, I love it. I think there will be plenty of opportunity once I graduate, with my degree especially, I just have an aversion to oil companies. I've seen how hard my dear daddy has to work and I just don't want that for myself. I benefited so very much from having my mom at my disposal while I was growing up, and if I've learned one thing is that I appreciated those days when my mom would take care of me when I was sick, instead of sending me to school. I want my kids to have that same luxury. I don't want to dedicate myself to a profession that will take anything away from my time with my children, because in my mind the greatest success you can be in life is to be a successful parent. If your child grows into a healthy, happy, productive member of society, what more can you ask for?

Mercy, I've gone on and on for no good reason! I'll leave it there. I have got to get a little more Latin America crammed into my brain. I just hope that between all the little islands in the Caribbean and the complexities of cities in North America, I can make my way to a decent grade on this exam!

bite that apple!

So I'm trying to get used to using a) a Mac and b) a laptop.

Neither is coming easy for me. And I wanted to get the new iPod loaded too because then I can take it with me to class, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen because I have to leave in 10 minutes. Woe is me. I foresee very little studying tonight. It's a good thing I tried to compensate last night. 

birthday surprises

So, I actually celebrated my birthday a day early. My mom had been planning, as I have said previously, on coming up on Sunday. I was really looking forward to celebrating, albeit a day early, with my mom and brother and husband. However, when said mom and brother showed up yesterday, they had three extra party members: our family dog Frasier, my mom's dog Tucker, and my SWEET DADDY!

I was shocked to see him! I thought he was in Qatar! What a wonderful birthday surprise. You'll have to excuse the two birthday posts, since I didn't want to tack daddy on to the end of the other one-- he deserves his own dedicated post.

I haven't had such a good birthday in a long time. It was wonderful. They brought me presents- my mom is so tuned into my love of Halloween decor that she got me a tombstone that says 'I'll Be Back' on it-- which is funny if you remember Zach's Arnold love. Then she got me a lighted spider's web with spiders. I have a little quarter round one I got years ago, but this one is a full spider's web and I like it much more than the one I already have, so I'm going to hang it inside. After presents we went to Abuelo's for lunch/early dinner. I thought it was the perfect choice. My daddy loves to eat Mexican when he's in town, you can imagine the "Mexican" he gets in the Middle East. Yeah. Ew. So that was great- I had all my loved ones there to celebrate with me. I felt very loved. Then we went back home, my mom had baked me a cake and we ate cake and Tucker and Jethro played...and played... and played. My dad and I took care of some things on the computer and we just enjoyed each other's company.

Dad's in town for a quick conference- he flew in on Friday- his was the last flight into Houston IAH. I am so thankful, I was so worried about my mom all weekend and now that I know she had dad there with her to deal with Ike, I feel so much better. I wish I'd known on Friday so I didn't spend all of Friday and Saturday worrying about mom, but no matter... So we're very lucky in that dad's not leaving again until after this next weekend, so he gets to go to the Miami football game! How wonderful! And Zach gets to go, and Cory too! Those three are going to have too much fun at the game together. Dad's going to get to see a game, which is more than we thought he'd get initially, and the three guys can yell and scream and understand what they're talking about all day long. It'll be great. I'm such a lucky girl!

and on this day...

Today is my birthday, hooray me!

I thought it might be fun to find out a little more about my birthday. So here you go, enjoy. I encourage you all to do the same...


Things of Note:

It's the International Day of Democracy
Today the British commemorate the Battle of Britain-- on the day of the last massive Luftwaffe attack back in 1940.

1835: HMS Beagle reaches the Galapagos Islands with Charles Darwin.

1935: Nazi Germany adopts a new national flag featuring the swastika.
1947: The US Air Force is separated from the US Army, becoming its own branch of the military.

Birthdays of Note:

Marco Polo, born 1254.

He would be 754 today.

James Fenimore Cooper, born 1789. Died Sept. 14 1851- one day shy of his 62nd birthday.

He's the author of such American classics as The Last of the Mohicans and The Pioneers.

President William Howard Taft, he would be 151 today.

He was our 27th President.

Agatha Christie would be 118 today.

She might have written... just a few novels.

Oliver Stone is 62!

He directed Platoon and Any Given Sunday. He's currently working on W.

Tommy Lee Jones is 62!

My favorite films of his include Men in Black, Batman Forever and The Fugitive.

Pete Carroll is 57!

He is the coach for a lil 'ol football team you might have heard of.

Dan Marino is 47!

He's only one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the game.

... and finally, my very distant, distant, distant, distant cousin, Prince Harry is 24 today!

*wink, family, wink*

batten down the hatches

There's a storm a brewin'.

Zach and I are ready! Well, kind of. Naturally, we haven't gone and stuffed our pantry with non-perishables. We don't have any canned peaches. No Vienna sausages here! We're just relying on the fact that we've got enough pretzels, corn chips, carrots and apples to make us happy. Most of our things outside have been put away. The only thing left for us now is to find a safe way to store our patio furniture. We're not too worried. We're actually just hoping that we don't lose power at some point this weekend. This old house is mighty stuffy if the AC gets turned off.

My husband got off early today- they closed down the University. I'm glad. Of course, I was actually more than a little peeved that they cancelled class at all. It's not scary up here yet, there's hardly the inkling of a breeze. Naturally, of course. Why don't we cancel school? It's not like there weren't days years ago when the entire campus was covered in ice and we didn't cancel- because a somewhat windy day is so much more dangerous than that. I can't believe I'm so bitter about classes being cancelled, but I know that I still only have two lectures until my first exam and that's not enough. But Zach's home and the Clinic is closed, so that's nice. I'm just happy he won't be stuck up there all weekend.

We're sad to say that Cory decided against coming in this weekend. Actually, it's not a bad thing. I mean, we're so excited to see him, but I'd rather he didn't have to drive through the mess getting here (though I doubt many people would be on the road going from a safe zone to a city that's "in the path") and getting back. He's planning on coming next weekend, and that's better. There's a football game that weekend as well, so he'll be able to go to that, if we can manage him a ticket. That'll be fun for Zach too, I'm not good company at a football game because at about half time I'm sick of being there. Short attention span.

Zach's loading Death Magnetic on his iTunes right now. He went and got it so that's only fair. I get it next. So even if the power does go out, the rechargeable battery on my iPod will remain so at least I can listen to my new album! Hooray!

We're almost a year away from Hawaii. I'm so excited. We're not sure if Zach's going to be able to take off from work, but we're hoping so. We talked about it though, and if he can't, then he can't. I'll still go, but we think that Zach having a good job and making a few sacrifices now for bigger benefits down the road is more important than anything else. If Zach can secure a good, solid contract at a clinic he likes then we will have nothing to complain about. I think that's it for today. I doubt very much that I'll update this weekend. This Metallica Week has pushed my regular number of posts up, up, up! I'll give you a break. We'll see you in a few days, blogosphere!

what's that smell?

5 am.

I'm up way too early. To be exact, I never was able to fall asleep. Talk about some major suckage.

That line- 'What's that smell?' -- '5 am' is from a movie- can you name it?

So, I'm in a cheery mood, despite not having slept. I managed to pull out a 99% on my biology homework about carbon bonding. Yeah- I don't know either. Even Zach, who had offered to help, was like, oh no good at the chemistry of it. *grumble* I managed rather nicely though. I'm proud. I have lab in... two and a half hours. I hate lab- I have three partners, one's this interesting looking freshman who hasn't discovered acne medication yet. Gross. Then there's the boy who has both ears pierced (not like I care) and wears jeans with WAAAAY too many holes in them. Then there's the junior, and we're quite attached to each other, being the only non-freshmen in the class. There's an obnoxious Corps guy-- more obnoxious than most. He thinks he's real cute, and almost everybody else does too. I have given him the "you're a total freaking dumbass" look more than once. He stays away from me now. Then there's loud mouth from nowhere, Texas. She's weird. In general, my dislike for my classmates is surpassed only by my dislike for my TA. I think it's because I sassed her on the first day. Whatever, she called me out in front of the class for not having closed toe shoes on and I shrugged and said "okay." Is that sassing? Probably. I wasn't in the mood.

So I'm really NOT happy about this danged hurricane. I'm worried about my momma- she's all alone in our house in Sugar Land, with nobody but her dogs! I hope she'll be okay, I wish I could go back and stay with her. But we've got Cory coming for the weekend, and the dear boy took time out from work to come and celebrate my birthday with me, so that's super sweet. He's the best-- I can't wait to see him! Of course, Zach's in for a nice, tidy weekend. The dean of the College of Vet Med told the Governor of Texas that if there are any animals that need shelter from the storm, they can come to the school, therefore Zach and all his fellow 4th years have gone from off duty to on call. Gah. Of course. He's less than thrilled. The poor guy is still trying to get on a normal sleeping and eating schedule. He's not really hungry when he should be and he's not tired until very late now, because of his nights on emergency. Glad that was a one-time-only shot.

My sweet mommy has offered to make me a birthday cake. How wonderful is she? The last time somebody made me a birthday cake was... when she made me one when I was living in my apartment all alone like 3 years ago. Sweet mommy! Lily managed to ruin that one, though, because we left it on the kitchen counter and went someplace. Mind you, she was only about three months old at the time, and when we got back, there were little kitten paw prints all over the top of the cake and a neat little corner of frosting had been eaten away. It would have been really nasty, if not for the really dang cute prints she left behind. I think my in-laws were grossed out, but mom and I laughed! The joys of owning a cat. She's sitting with me now. I wouldn't trade her for a dozen dogs.

Finally I leave you with two more photos of the Metallica men. Of course, I'm running out of pictures. It's harder than you'd think to find *good* pictures of the four current members, especially since Jason was with them for so long and then there was such a lull between Jason and Robert. Sometimes I miss Jason. He was so good at the screaming backup vocals. I especially love him on "Of Wolf and Man" from the S&M album-- That stands for Symphony & Metallica, you nasties! Seriously... I might have to update my iPod and charge the sucker so I can listen to that as I charge my way through Northgate and across campus in an hour and 15 minutes!

seriously?

Okay, so I love a good thunderstorm, but I can do without THAT.

3 to go...

I am ready for this week to be over.

4 more

I actually have stuff to say today other than "yay, I'm so excited." Yippee for you.

It's turning into a long week. Yesterday was not a good day, and I can't really say why. Just something about it... Today will be better, I hope. I think I'm in a funk because Zach's weird schedule has thrown me for a loop. I've been staying up late waiting on him to get home, and the last couple of nights on Emergency he was getting home so late that I gave up and went to bed. Yesterday, he passed out on the couch about 7 and then I tried to wake him to send him to bed at about 11:30 and he got up and then woke up. So he can't go to sleep, he isn't tired and what not, so he stayed up late, late, late and I stayed up with him. The bad thing? He had to get up this morning at 5:30. I told him when he gets home today he can either go straight to bed or he can sit up for a little while trying to get back on his schedule. I'm not going to let him just nap on the couch anymore. It messes him up too much. And I can't just let him sleep on the couch all night because there has to be some point during the day that I can clean up after him!

So Monday's my birthday... I'm hoping that Ike doesn't hit the Houston area hard because if not, my mommy is planning on coming up on Sunday. That would be nice. I would like that. I'm actually rather glad we don't have a football game this weekend. I never expect much for my birthday- I got over that fast coming to college- but it's going to be nice that my birthday isn't going to be an afterthought. It always seems like that when there's a football game. It's nice to get to see everybody for my birthday but then, you know they wouldn't be there except for the game. In all actuality, I'm being a complainer because I'm in that kind of a mood, my apologies. I think I need to go to the mall and get a cookie. That thought already has me cheered considerably.

So, in parting, I leave you with three shots of the guys together, again from their website. Enjoy.

... 5 days

Welcome to Metallica week on the Clark family blog!

Their new album, Death Magnetic, drops on Friday.
I am, in particular, over the moon about this. Three days before my birthday? Thanks for the awesome present, guys.

The pictures are all from the official website. They brought in Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters and did a radio show with them. You might know Dave from Tenacious D's The Pick of Destiny. He plays Satan. In order:

1) James

2) Kirk

3) Rob

4) Lars

5) L to R: Taylor Hawkins, Lars, James, Kirk, Rob, Dave Grohl.

what to think?

Well, what do you think? We need the rain...